J.F. Shields will not field football team in 1A this season

J.F. Shields, a Class 1A school in the tiny Monroe County town of Beatrice, has discontinued football and will not field a team this season.

"We just don't have the boys to form a team," principal Marion McIntosh said. "We've struggled in the past to make it to the end of the season."

J.F. Shields has competed in football since the school opened in 1972, according to the Alabama High School Football Historical Society, but hasn't enjoyed a winning season since 2000. Boys basketball coach Jerome Sanders and girls basketball coach Herbert Blackmon served as co-head coaches during last year's 1-9 campaign.

Shields' decision leaves 10 schools, including McIntosh and Monroe County, with a hole in their schedules.

Sanders transferred to C.P. Carmichael Alternative School and Blackmon retired earlier this spring, leaving no one to run summer workouts, McIntosh said. School officials opted to drop football as enrollment has dipped to approximately 130 students in grades 7 through 12.

The departure of Sanders and Blackmon also leaves the school's storied basketball programs in limbo, and McIntosh said no one has been hired to fill those vacancies.

"We're working on it," he said.

Without football at Shields, Beatrice becomes the second rural town in southern Alabama to lose high school football in the last year. Coffeeville closed in May as part of a school consolidation plan in Clarke County.

COACHING CHANGE AT MONROE COUNTY: Assistant principal Maurice Woody has taken over as head football coach at Monroe County High in Monroeville in the wake of Matt Blake's recent departure.

Blake left to become an assistant coach at Gulf Shores. Woody said Monday was his first day on the job.

"I'm looking forward to doing this and helping the school, and maybe we can build something for the future," Woody said.